454 KIN8HIP AND ADAPTATION 



down thousands of seeds. But after hunting seedhngs 

 witliin and around this grove for many years I find that 

 scarceljf one in many thousand seeds ever gets a chance to 

 sprout. There is seldom any crowding of the seedhngs. The 

 nearest neighbors may he many feet or many yards apart, 

 and the saplings are much fewer than the seedhngs. Some 

 advantageous position with reference to light or depth of 

 soil would account fullj' for their survival without an,v refer- 

 ence to small peculiarities in the plants themselves. More- 

 over, at bearing-time the ciuestion as to which trees shall 

 send seeds to such favorable spots seems to be decided not so 

 much by anj- peculiarities of the trees themselves or their 

 seeds as by the strengtli and direction of the wind at a gi\-en 

 moment and the obstacles that may happen to stand in the 

 wa}'. It does not appear that fitness is decisive. There is 

 some crowding. Indeed the grove itself might Ije called a 

 crowd of pine trees. But this crowding simply shows how 

 many plants can grow for manj^ years close together b>' 

 individual adaptation to one another. The signs of such 

 mutual accommodation are much more apparent than any 

 signs of competition. As applied to this grove the idea of an 

 intense "struggle for existence" among its components 

 would seem to be quite fanciful. One might urge that a 

 Darwinian need not suppose any new species to be arising 

 under the conditions described. Very true; but our illustra- 

 tion was not chosen to show how species arise. It was selected 

 as fairly representing conditions to ho met with on e\-ery 

 hand — conditions esscntiallj' similar to those under which 

 all evolutionists believe that new species have somehow 

 originated. 



An extreme case such as might be aftoriletl b.y desert con- 

 ditions increases our difficulties. Desert plants are always 

 few and far between. There always seems to be room for 

 many more. Competitions depending upon a surplus of 

 individuals would appear in general to be quite out of the 

 ((uestion. To be sure, each individual may be sujiposed to 

 have a hard time growing under such severe conditions; but 

 the fact that it lives there shows that it can stand them, and 

 it seems to be enabled to do so bv means of extraordinarilv 



